MUSICAL INTERTUDE

Category is....Dance or Die

Lady Gaga is back with hr new album and songs, her storytelling and her amazing choreography and yes-the fashion from her early days! Now mind you, I far from her biggest fan, but I do enjoy her though. What I like is what I like about Madonna. I love being surprised every time Gaga puts something new out. You never know you're going to get. Few artists can do that for me. I also caught her concert in Hershey when it came here, and she can put on a hell of a concert and sing her ass off. The newest song hinges on an absurd word repeating...Abracadabra. The music video for the single has all the hallmarks of early Gaga's chart-topping career: a chilling opening, campy monologue, ensemble dancers wearing Victorian lingerie fashion and doing outre choreography, by renowned Paais Goebel no less, and multiple custom ensembles for Gaga herself. It's interesting to see how her voice and vocal patterns and dancing change for parts of the story she is telling. The Zombie dance with the cane.? Creepy and cool to watch This might be my favorite song by her, and love it or hate, I can guarantee you it will be the song of the summer and gay clubs are already going into overdrive with it.

ALONG THE SEINE

What did I miss over the weekend whilst I was gone? Apparently quite the performance by Lady Gaga, who won the gold along the Seine River, as she transformed the Parisian waterway into a recreation of spectacle for the Olympics. I saw it once I was back, and while I'm not the biggest fan of Lady Gaga, this might be the best performance I have ever seen her give.Now remember, a performance for me has to have FABU ensemble, be campy, and have a memorable spin and she checked all the boxes not to mention she recreated a performance by one of my favorites, the late great and fabulous French star, ZiZi Jeanmarie, who only passed away in 2020 at the ripe old age of 96.  Gaga made quite the entrance on the staircase along the Seine with dancers, powder puffs and huge amounts of bead, feathers and marabou, looking like a Parisian dancer of yore, gave a song and dance and even tickled the ivories on a grand piano! Lady Gaga channeled the same aesthetic, costuming and vocal intonation of the late great ZiZi in the singers "Mon Truc En Plumes." ZiZi Jeanmarie originally did this as a performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Brava to Gaga for this performance and for giving now gone performers some more recognition. I approve. Now I need to figure out how to get my mits on the ensemble? I'd settle for just one of the pink pom-pom hats.

In case you missed kids.....

A LOVELY DAY

What a beautiful, inspiring day yesterday was.  I dare even say,  it was the most beautiful inauguration I've witnessed. A weight lifted, and much anger has left me. What I enjoyed the most , was that many of the people who have restored my faith in the country and politics in general, were altogether in one place. The President and First Lady, Joe and Jill Biden, Madame Vice-President Kamala Harris, President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar. I have no problem admitting my bi partisan tendencies...and even loved seeing President George W and Laura Bush there. And while I was by no means a fan or even liked Mike Pence, puke, I was at least glad he had balls enough to come and give some sort of tradition to past along while his mob boss ran away like a little baby. But did anyone really want the dump there? If he did watch the news, Ill bet he shit himself. And it's why I adore Joe Biden. He even said we can't look at everything as them and us , red and blue. If we don't change our way of thinking, this isn't going to work. So today, I feature this post, a post of my favorite moments that got me and blew me away. I want to look back one day and see this post and remember the feeling. It was a glorious day. I had asked my neighbor, the lumbersexual if he wanted to come over and watch together, I made a great roast beef dinner and Yorkshire pudding and we had copious amounts of Pinot Noir in celebration. 

Yep ...a gay guy and a straight guy? hopefully watching the unfolding of the back to normal , but new and improved United States. I even got a good chuckle when Briden asked "Why is JLo there?" I told him, "My mother told me, if you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me."

Come on...how do you NOT love Bernie's mailman look?!?! 

One on my favorite songs. It was perfect for the day.

COVER OF A MAGAZINE

The cover of  magazines this month have graced some of my favorites. As part of my job, our visual department on their behalf,  has sent to us several fashion periodicals so we can stay up on the latest and up and coming trends as our bibles for fashion and for inspiration when it comes to styling the groupings of mannequins in the store and for windows.  So, I will admit to being a bit more overjoyed and more tickled at the cover subject, then what the trends have been. Let's have a peek at my favorites shall we?  One of my all time favorite actresses has always been Helena Bonham Carter, who I feel is much under appreciated...but she always plays a memorable character and adds such color and quirk to many a film. Remember Dark Shadows? It would have been a total lost without her in it.

Helena Bonham Carter was interviewed in London at Annabel's for Town & Country’s cover. In it she shares how Princess Margaret remained true to herself, her family connection to Princess Margaret, how her meeting went with Margaret’s former flame Roddy Llewellyn, and how she’s felt Hollywood change for women after 40

Julianne Moore has always been a favorite. She has never looked more vibrant and stunning on this month's WSJ. has she? The Academy Award–winning actress has inhabited an inimitable range of characters, appearing in 70-plus films. Beyond Hollywood, Moore has also channeled her voice into one of her most notable roles yet: activist.

You know I love my girl Lizzo. She is bold, brave and proves you don't have to be a stick bitch and starving yourself to be fun and fashionable. I think she looks great the way she is and I love that she embraces it. Kudo's to British Vogue for having her grace the cover.

Lady Gaga, who I adore more for fashion then acting and singing, is fresh off the launch of her makeup line, Haus Laboratories, the Oscar-winning, Grammy-slaying Lady Gaga, the original multifaceted female mogul and an early champion of emotional well-being, about her exponential career path and her battles with mental health issues. Gaga also opens about her personal growth from both pain and kindness and what she sees as her mission now.  And of course she is wearing my favorite designer for the cover, Marc Jacobs!

It's like a gay boy's wet dream this month!!!!

And now let's usher in this weekend with some of the fun and fabulous Lizzo shall we, in the lively video-Tempo.

A SAY SOMETHING HAT DAY!

If you know me you'll know I love me ALOT of chapeau. The bigger the better. I say go big or go home. A milliner these days is as hard to find as a good cobbler in my opinion. But today should be a say something hat day for sure...for it is Philip Treacy's birthday today!!!

Philip Treacy is an Irish milliner and designer based in London. He moved to Dublin in 1985 to study fashion at the National College of Art and Design, where he made hats to go with outfits he designed. From there, in 1988, Treacy won a place on the MA fashion design course at the Royal College of Art in London, where he graduated in 1990 with first class honors. In 1989 he took one of his hats to Michael Roberts, fashion editor of Tatler magazine, and his style editor, Isabella Blow.  Blow asked Treacy to make a hat for her to wear for her wedding, and invited him to live with her and her husband Detmar in their home, from which Treacy started working. And the rest was history.

 

"Hats are radical; only people that wear hats understand that"

"How a hat makes you feel is what a hat is all about"

"Wearing a hat is fun; people have a good time when they're wearing a hat."

"Hats are the epitome of Englishness, and a royal wedding is the penultimate moment for a hat designer. I'm Irish, but I am a royalist and I believe in fantasy."

"Fantasy hats give you the possibility to dream."

"Hats are the epitome of Englishness, and a royal wedding is the penultimate moment for a hat designer. I'm Irish, but I am a royalist and I believe in fantasy."